Ad Market Grows For Sixth Straight Month, Boosted By Main Street Spending.

The U.S. market continued on a growth trajectory into the summer months, as the ad tracking firm Guideline reports that total spending climbed 3.1% in June. It continues a string of increases for the marketplace, with every month so far this year having higher levels of ad spending than a year earlier. June, however, saw the slowest rate of growth since February.

Guideline says the top ten advertising category spending was on par with 2024. The growth came instead from the wider breadth of the ad market. The data shows ad categories beyond the top ten spent 7% more in June 2025 than in June 2024. That is a trend that has been prevalent throughout much of this year, as Main Street advertisers have seemed more optimistic about the business climate than national brands.

Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker shows digital once again is where the biggest pace of growth is in May. It says digital spending by U.S. advertisers increased 9.2% vs. a year earlier. That helped to make up for an 11.3% decline in traditional media ad spending. Guideline says the mix of ads also continues to tilt in the digital direction. The monthly data shows that in June, digital’s share of overall spending edged up two points to 74%.

Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker is a composite monthly index from Standard Media Index, designed to provide a real-world measure of U.S. ad spending, based on actual invoiced media buys, including radio, from the major agencies and their clients. As such, it is mostly representative of spending by larger national advertisers.

The data is powered by Standard Media Index (SMI) and covers radio, television, digital, print, and out-of-home media types. It is based on actual spending data from the SMI pool partners at major holding companies and large ad agencies, representing 95% of all U.S. national brand ad spending.

See Guideline’s U.S. Ad Market Tracker HERE.